I Surrender All

God calls us to love Him with our whole mind, heart and soul, and then to love our neighbor as well as our self (Luke 10:27). We help one another when we fall into desperate times, and we share comfort in grief and provision in deprivation. Jesus is our ultimate friend, who sticks closer to us than our dearest brother (Proverbs 18:24; 1 John 3:1).

God’s Holy Spirit restores our life to stability and order as we follow His leading through each moment of our day. We embrace His will for our life, follow His precepts and obey His Holy Word. God hears the prayers of the afflicted (Psalm 10:17). He encourages us and listens to us when we cry out to Him (1 John 5: 14-15; Psalm 54:2). He keeps every one of our tears in a bottle and records them in His book (Psalm 56:8).

We cannot enter heaven through our own good deeds or morally upright behavior. We cannot go to heaven by joining a church, getting baptized or living in a Christian home. Jesus is the only way, truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). Salvation is a free gift from God and there is no way we can boast about our accomplishments (Ephesians 2: 8-10).

Surrendering our life to Christ is the first step of sincere faith and total submission to Him. He forgives us for our self-centered lifestyle and calls us to turn complete control of our life over to Him. He adopts us into His family, and He holds us, protects us, nurtures us and comforts us in all of our affliction. He constantly reassures us that He has everything under His control, so that we can surrender all to Him.

Prayer:

Father God, You defend the fatherless, the oppressed and the widow. You remove the terror from our life (Psalm 10:17-18). Your love for us defies description, because it is more than we can comprehend. Thank You for all that You do for all of us each and every day, and for plucking us out of our old lifestyle and giving us this wondrous new life in You. We will live each day in Your will with the knowledge that You already secured for us our eternal destination with You.

Thought for the Day:

Eternal life is a free gift, but only those who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, and who surrender control of their lives to Him, will receive it.

- John 3:36

Comfort for the Abused and Oppressed

 

God cares about the abused and the oppressed. He does not look down upon the mistreated, but He abhors their affliction. He gathers their tears in His bottle and records them in His journal (Psalm 56:8). He promises not to hide His face from them when they cry out to Him, and He champions their cause (Psalm 22:24, 140:12). He redeems the soul of the afflicted from deceit and violence. Their blood is precious in His sight (Psalm 72:14). God promises to lift up the distressed above those who try to hurt them and to deliver them from violent people (Psalm 18:48).

The Lord hates those who love violence and promises to punish them (Psalm 11:5; Zephaniah 1:9). He is wearied by the violence in homes and those who make excuses for divorcing their mate, whom they should be protecting (Malachi 2:16). God even despises verbal abuse, and proved it when He inspired Solomon to write, “violence covers the mouth of the wicked” (Proverbs 10:6,11). Jesus equates anger without a cause to murder, and He also speaks out against verbal abuse (Matthew 5:21-22).

There is comfort in belonging to Christ, comfort in His love and fellowship with His Spirit. His comfort makes us tenderhearted, compassionate, single-minded and in one accord with other Believers (Philippians 2:1-2). God gives them hope and a secure future (Jeremiah 29:11). God tells the church to bear one another burdens and to comfort each other (Galatians 6:2). God makes things right and provides the afflicted with a refuge from oppression and trouble (Psalm 9:9; 103:6). He brings down the haughty, evil person and saves the afflicted from their troubles (2 Samuel 22:28).

Prayer:

Father God, You comfort the downcast in our affliction (2 Corinthians 1:4, 7:6). You call each of us to encourage one another and to bear one another’s burdens (2 Corinthians 7:7).  By doing this, we actually fulfill Your law (Galatians 6:2). You call the strong to overlook the failings of the weak, and not to hold it against them (Romans 15:1). We love our neighbor with the same intensity that we love our self (Galatians 5:14).

Thought for the Day:

We encourage each other in our times of distress. - Hebrews 12:12